Cantor Fitzgerald chief Lutnick 'glad' bin Laden was killed

The chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, the US investment bank that lost 658
staff in the 9/11 attacks, has said he was “really glad” Osama bin Laden was
“killed” rather than left to die of natural causes.

Howard Lutnick of Cantor Fitzgerald lost more than two-thirds of his US workforce, including his younger brother Gary, in the al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Centre.Photo: STUART CONWAY

Howard Lutnick, who lost his younger brother Gary among more than two-thirds of his US workforce in the al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Centre, said he had been “waiting for this for a very long time”. “[Bin Laden] got away with killing my brother, and 658 of the people who worked with me,” he said. “I’m really glad we got him.”

Mr Lutnick, who survived the attack because he was late for work that day after taking his son to his first day at school, said: “I was afraid at first that maybe he died of cancer, which sort of would have left a big open sore there. But at least we got him.

“My fear was not that he would die, but that he would die of natural causes and sort of act like he’d gotten away with it,” he said.

All 658 of Cantor Fitzgerald staff, including 63 Britons, who went to work on September 11 2001 died. The bank’s headquarters occupied the 101st to 105th floors of the North Tower, just above where the hijacked plane crashed into the building.

Cantor lost more employees than any other company or organisation, including New York’s police and fire departments.